History of Managing Drought in Melbourne
Thomson Reservoir
Our approach to managing drought over the past century was to build new dams.
Dams have served Melbourne well since our first (Yan Yean Reservoir) was built in 1857. We now have 10 dams in service, the largest of which (Thomson Reservoir) was completed in 1984.
It’s understandable that people wonder why we don’t just build more dams. But runoff into reservoirs is now much lower because it rains less.
Today we recognise that we need to diversify our water sources beyond dams.
Managing water demand during drought has also involved water restrictions designed to conserve water storages. Since the 1960s, water restrictions have been introduced in dry years because of low stream flow into water storage reservoirs resulting in low storage levels.
Water restrictions were formalised in 1975 following the 1972-73 drought, however the 8-stage set of restrictions introduced at the time was later simplified.
The 1982-83 drought affected most of eastern Australia, and sparked the Ash Wednesday bushfires, which burnt 13,000 hectares of Melbourne's water supply catchments and caused massive dust storms. In Melbourne, Stage 6 restrictions were introduced in February 1983.
Since then, Victorian water authorities have worked to simplify restrictions.
In 1995, drought response plans were completed for the newly formed metropolitan retail water companies including a 4-stage restriction regime.
| Major droughts experienced in Victoria and around Melbourne | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1865-66 | 1914-15 | 1919 | 1922-23 | 1938-39 | 1943-45 |
| 1967-68* | 1972-73* | 1976-78 | 1982-83* | 1997-* | |
* Water restrictions introduced in Melbourne
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